Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service (RBFRS) is changing the way it responds to Automatic Fire Alarms in certain types of buildings as of 20 September 2024. Following a public consultation, RBFRS will stop automatically sending a fire engine when there is an automatic fire alarm notification in buildings such as shops, offices, leisure centres, sports grounds, libraries and health centres.

RBFRS will continue to attend automatic fire alarm notifications at schools, at higher risk buildings and where anyone sleeps, such as hotels, hospitals, care homes, houses, and flats.

In all cases, an emergency response will continue to be sent to 999 calls and confirmed fires.

An Automatic Fire Alarm (AFA) is a system that warns people of a possible fire. When activated, those responsible for the building should manage the response by evacuating and investigating the cause of the alarm. The AFA system may also notify a remote Alarm Receiving Centre, who will contact the building to find out the cause and then contact the Fire and Rescue Service. Find out more on this page.

RBFRS needs to change the way it responds to automatic fire alarm notifications to ensure communities and firefighters are kept safe. This is because 99% of the automatic fire alarm calls received are false alarms. Attending these types of incidents takes time and resource and therefore causes significant disruption to the delivery of essential services and training.

RBFRS will stop automatically sending a fire engine when there is an automatic fire alarm notification in buildings such as shops, offices, leisure centres, sports grounds, libraries and health centres. A full list of all buildings affected is here.

Members of the Royal Berkshire Fire Authority decided to make the change following a public consultation, which attracted a total of 389 responses during the consultation period. Thank you to everyone that shared your feedback to help inform our policy.

If you are a responsible person for a building in one of our affected categories of building, we will stop automatically sending a fire engine to your building, when there is an automatic fire alarm notification. However, we will continue to respond to all confirmed fires and 999 calls.